Best Chicken Salad (2010)

Clementine's chicken salads are the sexy girl next door of chicken salads. The summer version, composed of grilled chicken-breast slices, cucumber, yellow and red cherry tomatoes, sweet corn, haricot verts, feta crumbles and vinaigrette, is wholesome, fresh, basic and kind of sassy. You can go back to it every day, as many people in the neighborhood do during the summer months through October, when it is available. Clementine, of course, is not your average neighborhood bakery café. Chef-owner Annie Miler trained at Spago Beverly Hills and at Nancy Silverton's Campanile. Miler's menu changes with the seasons. So, if you happen to miss the summer version, there's always the Other Chicken Salad. Lest we be accused of marginalizing chicken salads, that's actually what it's called on the menu. With shredded chicken, strands of radicchio, celery, scallions, mayonnaise and whole-grain mustard, it's a denser concoction, best suited for sandwiches. Until its sweeter, lighter summer cousin returns, it will have to do. 1751 Ensley Ave., Century City. (310) 552-1080, clementineonline.com. Gendy Alimurung